Roses and Riddles
by EHWIES
Summary: Pansy's a bitter little thing, all acid rain and sardonic smiles, and she gives Astoria not snide insults but carefully worded wounds. xx A confrontation eight years in the brewing.


They still meet up in the summer sometimes, the ones left from Draco's year. He always invites her; she always declines—too many false niceties for her style. She was naïve enough to attend once, right after they were married, when everyone wanted to meet the new Malfoy bride; just the once.

She had always been the favored child, growing up—the beloved Greengrass daughter at Christmas parties and the ringleader of her year's pureblood girls. But Astoria hardly noticed Blaise Zabini's leers and Draco's overprotection: never did Daphne look her in the eyes.

She made no reconciliations after that night—but all the begging her new husband could muster couldn't convince her to go again.

So it takes Astoria by surprise when Pansy Parkinson Apparates into her backyard at half past one on an August morning, well into the Slytherins' annual gathering. She hasn't been to the manor in a good few years and miscalculates accordingly, tumbling right into one of Narcissa's rosebushes. "My mother-in-law spends hours a day pruning those, you know," says Astoria disdainfully—she doesn't much care for the pug-faced prefect who shoots her dirty looks whenever she's within eyeshot, and they _clash_, the apples of the purebloods' eyes.

Pansy stands, a few petals still clinging to her robes, and conceals the faintest hint of a scowl. "Funny. I don't see her out here now." True to their lineage, she gives Astoria not snide insults but carefully worded wounds.

"She tends to her garden in the early evening, when the sun is setting and there is no company to disturb her," Astoria dismisses—two can play at this game.

Unfazed, Pansy says, "Yet here you are, newborn in tow, outdoors at the hottest hour of the day. A bit—foolish, don't you think, considering the baby?"

Pansy's a bitter little thing, all acid rain and sardonic smiles, and smug Astoria clutches Scorpius to her chest as though to protect him from the elder witch's very aura. It's a beautiful day—the leaves and blossoms of the backyard's flora rustle every so often in a breeze that almost, _almost_, eases the heat. "I could say the same of you, Pansy, but that this isn't your yard and you remain, sadly, childless. Still haven't found a suitor willing to bestow his children with your… _attributes_, have you?"

Pansy ignores this, perhaps from dignity, perhaps shame. "Scorpius Hyperion, is it? May he be like his father, Merlin permitting."

"Don't you have a reunion to get to?" suggests Astoria (she calmly pushes Daphne's hurt from her mind). She looks straight into Pansy's sneering eyes and thinks, hard, _why are you really here_?

Shrugging, Pansy seats herself delicately in the adjacent chaise and diverts her gaze to the sleeping child. "Goyle's hosting. I thought I'd spare myself the food poisoning."

As if on cue, Scorpius stirs in her arms and grasps for his mother's neck. "We've already eaten, if that's what you were expecting," Astoria lies smoothly—lunch at the manor is served daily at two o'clock, half an hour from now. "There is nothing here that you could want."

"No," Pansy muses, "there is nothing you could give me that you have not already tainted."

Somehow, Astoria doesn't think that they're talking about lunch anymore.

The fall of Voldemort has hardened Pansy maybe more than the war itself did, and Astoria can't understand why Daphne still likes her—why Draco still talks with her from time to time. Astoria herself… she tries not to remember that Draco chose her for her status or that she didn't mind being a trophy wife, then. "Let it go," she says roughly—Scorpius is clamoring for her breast, and she has no more time for riddles. "Draco is my husband, and he has no use for flings of the past." (She has this, at least, to be proud for, and she clings to the shards of what-she-once-was.)

"You say that now," says Pansy, rising and straightening her robes. "Give my best to Lucius and Narcissa." She takes her time Disapparating, her eyes trained to little Scorpius all the while.

It amazes Astoria how civil their tones of voice have remained.

(_…and she still kisses Draco in the summer sometimes and remembers when he would taste like acid rain…_)

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A/N: Written for **The Reviews Lounge**'s latest collaboration, **In The Summertime**—be sure to take a look! Thanks very much to **PrincessPearl** for beta-reading; for a lovely portrait of Astoria, don't hesitate to read her one-shot **Pay Attention**.


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